Foot injury leaves Steelers’ JuJu Smith-Schuster as questionable vs. Rams

Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster was designated as questionable to play in Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Rams on the official injury report the team released Friday.

Smith-Schuster was listed as limited in Friday’s practice because of a foot injury that had not previously been acknowledged by the team. Smith-Schuster suffered a toe injury during the season-opening loss at the New England Patriots that had him miss practice time the ensuing week and again three weeks later. It is not known if this injury is related to that one.

Smith-Schuster told PennLive.com that the injury was minor and that he expected to play Sunday.

After finishing in the top six of the NFL in receptions (111) and receiving yards (1,426) last season, Smith-Schuster’s production has dropped significantly without Ben Roethlisberger (injured reserve) and Antonio Brown (traded) as part of the offense this season.

Smith-Schuster has 33 catches for 459 yards at the midway point of 2019; during three of the past five games, he’s had fewer than 17 receiving yards.

After the release of Donte Moncrief last week, the Steelers are down to five wide receivers on their active roster: Smith-Schuster, rookie Diontae Johnson, James Washington, Ryan Switzer and Johnny Holton. Those four combine for 117 career catches — or just six more than Smith-Schuster had in 2018 alone.

Tevin Jones is in his second season on the Steelers’ practice squad, and Terry Wright was signed to the practice squad earlier this week.

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